Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Oh please

Fightlinker has an "Open letter to Kenny Florian" up on their site, where they criticize Kenny for a number of things.
I disagree with the whole letter. Kenny put together a great fight plan, and whipped a kid who had rolled through almost everyone in front of him. While It may not have been the most exciting for some, it was effective above all.
Here's the scoring criteria (from NSAC):

7. Thus for all Judges scoring UFC fights, the prioritized order of evaluating criteria is:
-clean strikes and effective grappling are weighed first.
-octagon control
-effective aggressiveness

Note the insertion of the word "effective". While Huerta may have been more aggressive, he was certainly, by a wide margin, less effective.
One can make and argument that aggressiveness should count for more, and I'm fine with that. But the criteria is what it is, and if a fighter dominates a fight within the scoring criteria he (or she) didn't merely "not lose", they won. I mean, what are they looking for, people who put their heads down and swing their arms in windmills? Like a second grade "I'm going to swing my arm and if it hits you it's your fault" fight? Yes, you want people trying to finish. But the fighter's the one who decides when he/she can try to finish the opponent.
This applies to Lyoto Machida, too, a guy many people seem to really hate. I don't feel that way, as I've said in the past. I think the guy is pretty incredible, and I hope he gets a title shot soon.

2 comments:

Eric Kamander said...

Garth, Let me know if you're interested in writing regularly in a more consolidated environment than your blog. (like on my blog :-)

garth2 said...

sure thing...fire me an email (krucz36 at gmail.com)

 
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